Joni Ernst

Votes Cast

50

Yea Rate

76.0%

Bills Sponsored

10

Missed Votes

2.0%

Joni Ernst is Iowa's junior Republican senator, a retired Iowa Army National Guard lieutenant colonel and Iraq War veteran, serving her second term.

Joni Kay Ernst is the junior U.S. Senator from Iowa, a Republican first elected in 2014, becoming the first woman to represent Iowa in either house of Congress, and re-elected in 2020. A native of Red Oak, Iowa, she earned degrees from Iowa State and Columbus State and spent more than two decades in the U.S. Army Reserve and Iowa Army National Guard, retiring as a lieutenant colonel and deploying to Kuwait and Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Before the Senate she served as Montgomery County auditor and in the Iowa State Senate. In the 119th Congress, she chairs the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and serves on Armed Services, Agriculture, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and Veterans' Affairs. Ernst has championed Pentagon waste reduction, sexual assault reforms in the military, biofuels, and rural broadband. In September 2025, Ernst announced she would not seek re-election in 2026.